Do you remember how you spent the Fourth of July holiday in 1976? I was at a party on the upper west side of Manhattan, where I lived at the time, and the mood was electric. America’s Bicentennial celebration was approaching its climax, and there was a widespread sense of relief and celebration.
The long shadow of the Vietnam War finally seemed to be behind us; Richard Nixon had resigned from the presidency and been replaced by Gerald Ford, who was seen by many as a calming, steady influence; the economy was recovering from a deep recession in 1974-75; the country was not engaged in either a foreign war or the domestic unrest of the 1960’s; and now the nation had come together to celebrate our nation’s two hundredth birthday.
I wasn’t particularly interested in either history or politics at the time, but I still was caught up in the excitement of that day. Communities across the nation were celebrating with fairs, concerts, parades and fireworks, while the residents of New York City were treated to Operation Sail, a parade of tall ships from around the world, many of them still serving as naval training vessels. Our party location enjoyed a view of the Hudson River.
As the ships majestically made their way up the Hudson, I was moved by two things: the stately masts and sails that spoke so eloquently of the meaning of the past, the history of the nation of which I was a citizen; and by a sense of shared purpose, perhaps of belonging, that I felt not only with my fellow party-goers but with all Americans, all across the country. It felt like each of us was a part of something larger than ourselves, and we were all proud to be Americans.
Last weekend, fifty years later, tall ships again sailed up the Hudson River, but I’m not sure most people would say the national “mood” or the American spirit is in very good shape.
Consider how we viewed immigrants. Republican President Gerald Ford, speaking to a group of newly naturalized citizens, told them, “You have given us a birthday present beyond price – yourselves, your faith, your loyalty, and your love.” He also said, “We have gained far, far more than we have given to the millions who have made America their second homeland.”
Similarly, Ronald Reagan, another Republican President, spoke memorable words as he left office that we would do well to remember today: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
As I reflect on what it felt like to be an American back at the time of the Bicentennial, I realize that the changing views about immigrants and immigration are a symptom of something deeper, and much more fundamental, that has changed about us.
It’s not our disagreements; Americans have disagreed from our nation’s very beginning. Control of our government has passed back and forth between the two major political parties throughout our history, following an almost predictable pattern in which one party assumes power and, by the time the midterm elections roll around, the voters seem interested in making changes no matter who they voted for the last time. Somehow, our sense of connection with each other survived despite the different beliefs we had and the different policies we supported.
But now, the differences have become more extreme, and the normal push and pull of government functioning seems to have been forced into a more radical and arbitrary pattern. Political disagreement has increasingly become personal, leading us to judge the other person’s motives instead of considering their ideas. Fear, rather than hope and cooperation, guides our legislators’ decisions and our interactions with each other.
We the people, for our part, have increasingly come to doubt the institutions and processes that used to help assure us that at least a predictable stability would prevail, even through disagreements and revisions of the government landscape.
So, perhaps it used to be easy to feel like we were all Americans, because the differences between us didn’t seem to put the future of the country at stake. We could disagree, even vehemently, and still trust that the structure of our nation, via our Constitution, would hold us all as we debated our choices.
Now, since we can’t reliably count on our politicians to work on behalf of the best interests of the entire nation, we are faced with the challenge of changing things ourselves. This is where we can draw on the inner pride and strength we used to take for granted, and stop just looking for the best leader to follow. We can choose to be caring and connected to our fellow Americans, rather than sorting them into in-groups and out-groups. We can insist that our representatives embody those characteristics as well.
Perhaps, fifty years from now at our Tricentennial, as we again watch the tall ships that remind us of our past, we will look back and see this time in our history as the moment we began finding our way back together; the moment when everyone who loves this country and wants to make it better was valued for their commitment to our shared future. The moment we rediscovered how to belong to one another as Americans.
Susan Hull is a retired clinical psychologist, a horse trainer, and an independent voter. She hopes we can learn to express our humanity in ways that include all the people in the boat with us, since, after all, there’s just one boat.
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